What Are The Foundation Stones Upon Which You Build Your Life?

“If it’s time to restructure our life, it’s always the foundation that must change first. Knowing this, we must ask ourselves, ‘What is the nature of our foundation? Do we have foundation stones? What are they? How many are there, and are there any missing?’”

I set out to figure out what foundation stones are and if I had any, and what were they. The book isBowl of Lightby Hank Wesselman, a shamanist with whom I’ve studied. The words were spoken by Hale Makua, the Hawaiian kahuna mystic.

What are foundation stones?

A foundation is an infrastructure that supports and dictates the shape that is formed. That can be the foundation of a building. It can be the foundation for a body of work. It can be the foundation for your life path.

How is your life unfolding?

Life is constantly evolving, so it makes sense that we should check our infrastructure often. We do that by noticing how things are going.

There’s a very tall, very expensive, fairly new apartment building in San Francisco that is slowly sinking and tilting. The builders now say it should have been built from steel rather than concrete, which is very heavy, and that the foundation should have reached down to bedrock, not fill.

Good hindsight. Bad original decisions. Hard to correct.

So, perhaps we get to look at what is shifting, or leaning or unsteady in our lives and work on our infrastructure. Our foundation stones.

What is your purpose?

Before you begin to restructure or rebuild or rearrange, you need to look to see how your purpose has shifted. It’s pretty obvious that there’s change when you graduate, or change jobs, or get married, or have a child, or…. Those are major changes that suggest we need to restructure our life.

It’s the subtle changes that can sneak up on you – the aging process being one example. Physical change occurs in very small increments over time and you make small adjustments to accommodate them. Then suddenly you realize standing or walking or lifting is a lot harder to do than it once was. That’s when you notice your foundation has a few new cracks in it. And you need to make some adjustments in your foundation stones.

Define the purpose of your restructure

Create a mission statement for the change you want to make. “At the end of this (book, post, experience), people will leave with an understanding of….”

That’s a very powerful question to ask. What is your purpose? What is the purpose of this action? How does it help others?

The answers to these questions focus your choices and dictate the design of the foundation you build. Do you know your life purpose? Do you know your soul’s purpose?

It may be that our foundation stones shift and rearrange themselves in importance as we move through life. “Figuring out life” is something we work on all our lives, but that process will take many shapes and forms.

If I’m an athlete, my physical well-being stone will be quite large. As I age and my interests shift, that foundation stone may change shapes and become less prevalent.

The Foundation Stone for the Indigenous People is respect

A foundation stone for the indigenous mind is reverence, an active sense of respect.

That means respect for our earth and all who live here – plants, animals, people, land, rivers, oceans. When indigenous people kill an animal for food, they leave an offering for its spirit. They honor each part they use, the skin, the bone, the flesh. They treat each part with respect and gratitude for the sacrifice of life.

We could do that. We could add a blessing to our meals to thank the source of the food, to the land that nourished it and the people who brought the food to us.

Indigenous people are conscious of the soul of the earth and take great care to listen to her needs and care for her.

They do not feel they own the land, they have great respect for what is offered and provided by the land. It’s not about worship, it’s about reverence and respect and honoring the energy, the spirit of the land.

I want to become more reverent of the soul of nature. I will spend time looking out my window at the snow falling and mindfully observe the changes it makes in the landscape. I will watch the sun go down each day and offer gratitude for the events and lessons I’ve received that day. I will become more conscious of my consumption – of everything – and choose to live more simply and walk more softly and leave a lighter footprint on my planet.

The desire to be more reverent of the earth requires me to shift my awareness, to become more mindful, to be aware of the spirit of the land upon which I walk, the spirit of the birds that cross the sky, the spirit of the mountains in the distance. Look for the spirit in all things and honor it.

Spirituality is a verb. Spirituality is action

Every moment of our life is spiritual.

Our spirituality expands with every experience we consciously explore, every choice we make, and with every thought we think – both positive and negative.

Take a long look at your spiritual foundation stone. Is it strong yet flexible? Is it responsive to my life? Can you trust your spiritual foundation to support your service to our world?

Spirituality is a verb. Make certain your spiritual foundation stone keeps you fluid and responsive.

Your spirituality stone

We all have a spirituality foundation stone. It may be large or small. It may have shifted position over the years. But we all have one.

What does your spirituality foundation stone look like?

I know that spirituality is, for me, my center foundation stone. But it has had many shapes and colors and tonality over my 85 years – Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Transcendental Meditation, Metaphysician, Reiki, crystals, New Thought Clergy, QiGong, Tai Chi, Taoism, Shamanism. I’ve built upon each layer, keeping some of what I learn, discarding other concepts that do not resonate. Bits and pieces of spiritual exploration layered throughout life, carried forward and adapted. A mosaic. A foundational stone with many layers and many colors.

What matters now is what I’m currently doing in my spiritual life – how it’s expanding my awareness and nourishing my life. Shamanism is taking me on unbelievably informative meditative journeys. The form of my illumined service keeps expanding as I build up layers of spiritual insight.

My spiritual foundation stone includes continuous spiritual exploration, a powerful need to learn, an enthusiastic response to many things spiritual and a powerful need to follow my own calling.

What does your spiritual foundation stone look like and feel like? Is it strong enough to support you right now?

Your purpose stone

We each come into this world with a soul’s purpose. It’s an agreement we make before we enter this body suit.

It may be a purpose that focuses on personal growth. It may be a purpose that expands our world service.

One of our major tasks is to identify our soul’s purpose and make certain we accomplish it. It’s the lesson we have come into this lifetime to learn, the gift we have come to give.

My awareness of my soul’s purpose has recently shifted as I listen more closely to my inner guidance. I have seen myself as a messenger and an interpreter of the inner worlds, which I still am. But my purpose has recently expanded into helping light beings recognize their own light and consciously join with light of other light beings to heal our world. I’m just now coming into that place of service.

Look at your purpose stone and see how clearly marked it is. And what’s changing within it.

Your gift stone

To accomplish your soul’s purpose, you come into this world with certain gifts. You may or may not develop them, but they are powerful tools if you put them to use.
Some people recognize their calling at a very young age. I began to write for my high school newspaper and was made Managing Editor in my senior year. The faculty saw my gifts for writing and organizing before I did.

Sometimes your gifts take a while to uncover. My foundation gift stone contains the ability to see the overview and to share that with others through my words. My gift stone also includes my willingness to listen to and be guided by this very loud inner voice that leads me on all manner of adventures. It’s taken me a while to figure that out. I have the freedom to continue to explore. I’m fearless when it comes to taking a new path.

Take time today to journal to find what’s in your gift stone.

Your Illumined Service Stone

Finding your place of illumined service may take some exploration. Some people know they have to be involved with music, or a particular sport, or a certain form of business. They know it early in life and their path is quite focused.

Others of us wander around experimenting.

But there are always signs. Look at your gifts. Look at what others ask of you. Look at what you love to do. Those are clues to your illumined service.

What other foundation stones might we have?

Based on the idea of having a foundation stone of respect, I personally need to add an unconditional love stone. The passage that I read didn’t list what the foundation stones are. That’s for us to figure out. Spirituality, Gift and Service are just three that showed up for me. You may have an entirely different set of foundation stones.

A Learning Stone

A Learning Stone is part of my personal foundation. I have to be constantly exploring and examining and adapting and applying. It’s a big stone in my foundation.

Interaction with another’s foundation stone

Sometimes we’re drawn to people with similar foundation stones. Sometimes we’re drawn to someone simply because their foundation stone is something we want to learn, to absorb, to adapt. What foundation stones of others are you drawn to? Do you need/want to add your version of that stone to your foundation?

A Like-Minded Explorer’s Stone

As my spiritual path evolved, I have moved from friend to friend, learning from some, exploring with some. The more specialized my own philosophical interest, the fewer people who are walking on that exact path.

Find the people that grow you and spend focused, exploration time with them. (The two people that expand my work are in different parts of the country and we regularly connect on Skype.)

A Love Foundation Stone

The Love Foundation stone may be about giving love. It may be about being able to receive love. It may be about how you give love to the world through your thoughts and actions. Look at its qualities and shape the stone the way you want it to be.

How many foundation stones are there?å

There are as many foundation stones as you need. Take time to figure out what your foundation stones are and how they need to be modified or strengthened.

Tangible Service in the world may be a foundation stone. Help the world may be a foundation stone for you. Select and build on the foundation stone your need for this part of your life.

How to reshape a foundation stone

The first step in reshaping your foundation stones is to identify the foundation upon which you currently stand. Are your foundation stones steady or do they rock a bit? Are they big enough and strong enough to hold you where you’re headed?

What small foundation stones are outdated, or no longer useful? Clear those out. What about that belief pebble that is stuck under a foundation rock that makes it wobble? Get rid of those hidden, no-longer-useful beliefs.

Your life is the way it is because of the foundation stones you’ve built upon

If your life is not unfolding as you would like, you’ll want to examine your foundation stones. Particularly look for pebbles and large rocks that say, “I don’t deserve that” and “I don’t think that is possible.” Clear out the old, out-dated, no-longer-useful rocks from your foundation. It will make you stand taller and be stronger.

Then look closely at where you want to go next. And begin to build up the foundation stones that’ll take you there.

Your foundations stones will be different from mine. They’ll have different meanings. They’ll be of different shapes and have different priorities.

It’s for you to decide.

What are your foundation rocks and are they the ones you need for this next portion of your life?